TONY PULIS saw his worst fears become reality as Stoke City slipped to only their second Barclays Premier League defeat in 11 games at the Britannia Stadium.
Pulis revealed afterwards that he had contacted the Referee's Association and FA about getting the official changed for the match after learning that Mike Dean was the man in charge for the clash with Champions League Tottenham Hotspur hopefuls.
Dean had sent off City players in each of their last two games in which he was in charge and the red card he handed to Dean Whitehead on this occasion proved to be decisive in the outcome of the Spurs game as the home side went down 2-1 in the end.
This followed on from the fact that Abdoulaye Faye was sent off in the 2-1 defeat at Hull City and Andy Wilkinson given his marching orders in the 2-1 victory at Portsmouth, both of which were also for two bookable offences like Whitehead.
"We wrote to the FA to express our concerns when we found out who the referee was for this match and I followed that up with a call to Mike Riley on Wednesday in the hope that we could get that choice changed," commented Pulis. "We felt it would be best in the circumstances if we could avoid Mike Dean until the end of the season.
"He has not done brilliant in matches when he has been in charge of us and again today I thought it was a harsh decision to send Whitehead off.
"I have no problems with the bookings in the first half. As for the incident in the second half though, it is a free kick, but is it a booking, I don't think so.
"There was a similar incident in the Aston Villa-Wolves match where Stiliyan Petrov, who had already been booked, committed a similar offence, but in that instance the referee Mark Clattenburg used common sense and spoke to him."
He added: "The decision to send Wilkinson off in the Portsmouth match was a poor one, and this is another very contentious one he has made today.
"To concede a goal and then have a player sent off within four minutes of the restart left us with an uphill battle. Credit to the lads, they kept going against a very good side, and I thought we created the more clearcut chances."
Spurs boss Redknapp hailed the contribution of former Bolton and Chelsea striker Eidur Gudjohnsen following his decisive introduction as a substitute.
Gudjohnsen put Tottenham in front within the 36 seconds of the restart and his astute dummy led to Niko Kranjcar firing home the winning goal.
"Eidur is top drawer in terms of his ability and he has been unlucky up to now in that Pavlyuchenko has hit form, Defoe has been scoring goals and Crouchy has done well," said Redknapp. "So he has had to be patient for his chance.
"It was a tough old game and there wasn't much to shout about in the first half. I told them at half time that we needed to keep the ball better, we had to be brave and pass the ball. When we kept it, I always felt we could open them up."
